The German Empire at the outbreak of war in 1914 controlled up to about half of modern Lithuania, while the Russian Empire controlled the rest of the Baltic states. Modern day Poland was split roughly between the two. According to the 1900 Census, there were three million native Polish speakers and 100,000 native Lithuanian speakers in living in the German Empire. There were also several hundred thousand who spoke other Polish dialects. On the other side of the border, there were 147,000 of German ethnicity who lived in the three Baltic provinces of Imperial Russia. Clearly, there was a significant mix of populations in these territories.

The Russian Germans had first begun to settle in the Baltic in the 13^th and 14^th Centuries. They came under Russian control in the early 18^th Century, after the Great Northern War. The German population had slowly supplanted the Latvian and Estonian elites, forming an economically and socially dominant class. Even the names of the three provinces, Kurland, Livland and Estland, were German, and German was the language of government and administration. In exchange for their loyalty to the Russian Crown, the German aristocracy were granted significant autonomy and freedoms. The administrative structures which they had built under Swedish rule were allowed to more or less continue. Due to their high education levels, Baltic Germans often found service in the Imperial Officer Corps or in the wider Russian administration. On several occasions, administrative or jucidial structures in the Baltics provided examples for proposed Russian reforms.

By the dawn of the 20^th Century, little had changed with regards to German dominance. However, the Baltic states had become some of the most developed areas of the Russian Empire. The German aristocracy had abolished Serfdom from 1816-19, fourty years before it was abolished in Russia as a whole. The urban population was twice as high as the Russian average, the railway network was far more developed, and 3.6% of the population were industrial workers, compared to 1.4% of Russia as a whole.

However, while Baltic Peasants had been emancipated much earlier than their Russian counterparts, there was still very little land ownership and Baltic German estates still dominated. The average Baltic German estate was four times as large as the average Russian one. Local Government in the Baltics remained dominated by the Germans. This often lead to resentment. During the 1905 Revolution, twelve million rubles of damage was caused to estates and manorhouses in the Baltic provinces. This was especially prevalent in areas with higher German populations.

After the First World War broke out, the German army quickly reversed the initial advances by the Russians, and soon occupied significant parts of the Baltic provinces. The high water mark of the German advance was reached in September 1917 when they occupied Riga. Shortly afterwards the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed between the two countries, and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were created as independent states within the German sphere of influence. This outcome had been heavily supported by the Baltic Germans. The Baltic Germans had increasingly been treated with suspicion by the Russians, and when a Baltic German general delayed coming to the aid of the 2nd army at the Battle of Tannenberg, this division only grew.

It's important to make a note here about the development of Latvian and Estonian national identities in their own right. While this development was hampered by the lack of any pre-existing nation state, the revolution of 1917 provided the impetus for the development of nationalism. Within a week of the revolution, Estonian nationalist got the Provisional Government to form an Estonian territory along Ethnic lines. In July, Latvia received similar treatment, although large parts were under German occupation. The Estonians formed their own Estonian language administration. However, it came into conflict with the Estonian Soviets, who were mostly formed of ethnic Russians, and conducted their business in Russian. In Latvia, the nationalists largely lost out to the Bolsheviks, due to the presence of a large number of industrial workers. The support of the Latvian Rifle brigades was key to the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution and subsequent repression. Members of these brigades formed some of the first Cheka officers.

After the end of World War I, there was significant conflict between the three new Baltic states and Soviet Russia, who invaded all three in an attempt to regain control, as part of the wider Russian Civil War. The Russians lost all three wars, and the new Baltic states were aided significantly both by soldiers from Germany and by units formed of Baltic Germans. However, the losses suffered in these conflicts, as well as in World War I and from refugees meant that the Baltic German population suffered a significant decline in population, from which it never recovered.

After the war, the new Government structures set up in all three states meant that the Baltic Germans lost their traditional political and social dominance. The Baltic German co-operation with Germany in World War I also meant that they were relatively unpopular. In Latvia, there was widespread requisition of land. Of the two million hectares owned by Germans before the war, only 50,000 was left to them after the Latvian agrarian reforms. However, Latvia's constitution allowed the Germans to conduct their own schooling in German and made provisions to allow German political parties to be set up. The German government also made some funds available to allow Baltic German refugees to return to Latvia. The Estonian Government expropriated almost all estates, bankrupting many of the Baltic German aristocracy who had owned them. However, Baltic Germans were given political rights, and the Estonian-German Party consistently won 2-4 seats in elections. The agrarian reforms, while cruel, were also necessary for the Baltic states to modernise their agriculture.

The main de-Germanisation of the Baltic States came in the period from 1939-1945. As part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which left the Baltic states in the Russian sphere of influence, the Baltic Germans were forced from their homes and resettled in areas controlled by Nazi Germany, the majority were resettled in Poland. In 1941, those who had refused to go as part of the first wave were forcibly evicted. Those who managed to stay in their homes were often persecuted by the Soviets after the invasion of the USSR, with many executed or deported to Siberia. As the Soviets advanced across eastern Europe in 1944/5, those Baltic Germans who had been resettled in Poland were again forcibly evacuated or fled as refugees. After the war, the USSR destroyed many Baltic German statues and graveyards in the Baltic states. Almost 700 years of Baltic German history was wiped out in just six.

In summary, while the Baltic was not entirely German in terms of numbers, there was a significant ethnic German population in all three areas. This population tended to be richer and more politically dominant than the ethnic Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians, but this changed following the First World War, when the newly independent states took political and economic power for themselves. The Baltic Germans were forcibly resettled during World War 2, and the majority of the population never returned home afterwards.

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